


Picture This

by smellyleaf



Category: Olympics RPF, Swimming RPF, usa swimming
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Married Characters, Past Infidelity, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 06:03:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4553511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smellyleaf/pseuds/smellyleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a story like this, there's always someone else. My fave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Picture This

**Author's Note:**

> **[THIS WORK WAS IMPORTED FROM SMELLYFIC.LIVEJOURNAL.COM]**

Picture this: You're in a beautiful apartment with a beautiful woman. She smells like daffodils and vanilla bean hand soap. When she tosses her hair over one shoulder, it sighs through the air and it matches the sigh in your throat.  
She loves you. She won't say that she loves you, but you know it, the same way that you know when to turn your head to the right to take a breath after each stroke.

Picture this: You and the beautiful woman are eating dinner. You are gnawing at a bloody steak and she is picking delicately at a pile of lettuce. The phone rings, and both of you stare at it. It is in the middle of the table, next to the napkins, her keys, and your iPod.

She will not mention it, because it's beneath her to hurt you like that, and you will not answer it, because you don't think you can do so and still be a sane, logical person.

It's interesting how that works out sometimes, you think, as the phone rings on and on and finally stops. It kind of makes you want to scream.

You look at her lettuce and she looks at your steak and the two of you somehow manage to never look at each other.

Now picture this, too: There's someone else. In a story like this, there's always someone else. He's beautiful, too, and he smells like that lemony air freshener you buy at the Dollar Store (the aerosol kind). The kind he's always spraying to cover up the weed smell when his mom comes over, because he's cheap and he won't buy the expensive brand. He never tosses his hair over his shoulder, and he always uses the last of your hand lotion to jack off with, and he never cares that it's expensive.

His mouth tastes like peppermints and beer, and sometimes when you get drunk watching the football game, you brush your teeth afterward and you think of him and God, you miss him.

You love him. You won't say that you love him, but everybody knows it, the same way they've always known.

Picture this: You've dropped your fork. You bend to pick it up and she says ' **Michael, I'm pregnant** ' and you hit your head on the underside of the table when you try to sit back up.

She's crying into her salad and you look at her and you hate her, but it's not her fault.

"It's not mine," You tell her, and the phone is ringing again, and she's crying, and this is your life now.

"I know," She agrees, and she keeps crying, "Just answer it."

You've never touched her, because touching her can never be anything like touching him. But you take care of her, and she takes care of you, in a way. The apartment is clean, the dogs well-groomed. She always smiles just right in all the photos and she never says the wrong thing when the camera is rolling.

Picture this: The last time you saw him, he was naked on this very table, his round ass propped on the edge of it right here where your hand is resting now, near your wine glass. And he was drinking the orange juice right out of the carton and you sucked his dick, right there, and he left the juice sitting out and you forgot all about it. When you came home from dropping him off at the airport, it was still sitting there getting hot and you remember how you cried and you clench your hand into a fist.

"I'll take care of it. I'm not going anywhere," You tell her with a smile, and you hate yourself for always saying the right thing.

She was at work that day, and she called to ask you to email her your schedule and you couldn't even answer because you were crying in the kitchen, holding that carton.

"Thank you, Michael," She tells you, and her crying is less urgent at least. She picks up her fork and you look at it and you see him holding that same fork.

He would be eating steak with you, and he'd be laughing.

Your chest feels tight and you press one palm to it, because your heart isn't beating at all anymore.

And, at this point, so much has already been said that I'm surprised in anyone that's still reading it at all. But we're not done yet, because unhappiness is never truly complete until there's nothing left at all but darkness, and despair, and something strange and silent called regret. If anyone knows that, and understands it, it's you.

But picture this: That ring on her finger glints and it's the ring you always meant for him to wear and you hate her, but it's not her fault. She is a lot of things, most of them good, but she can never be Ryan Lochte.

The phone rings, and she nods, and you answer it.

"Michael," His mother says, "We were wondering if you were going to be available for pall bearer?"

You hang your head and your chest is hurting so bad. It feels like water is rushing into your goggles, clouding your vision, and then you realize that's because you're crying again.

And you think back to that juice, and when you first found out his plane never made it.

You hear a soft, keening cry. It takes you a second to realize that you're hearing yourself.

"Why?" You ask her, and you're not asking her about anything she called to say. You're asking her the same thing you asked her when you found out. You're asking her why God had to take him from you, from the both of you. You're asking her why bad things happen, why they keep happening, if they'll ever stop.

His mouth tasted like peppermints and beer. And sometimes, when it's early in the morning and you're getting drunk, you bite your tongue until it bleeds and God, you miss him.

So congratulations. If you're picturing this, if you're seeing the salad with the limp lettuce and my fork in your hand and that little scuff on the decorative border of the table where his watch scraped the shine off when he slapped the wood and told you he was coming. . .

If you're picturing all that, then congratulations, because now I know I'm not crazy and I'm not alone and that, just maybe, you miss him too.  
  



End file.
